Police catch man posing as lesbian photographer

ONLINE CHARLATAN:：The man allegedly told women he was a lesbian and needed their nude photos for an arts evaluation, then posted the photos on the Internet

By Tsai Chang-sheng / Staff Reporter

Thu, Feb 09, 2012 - Page 2

Hsinchu police on Tuesday cracked a case in which a 25-year-old man allegedly acquired 8 gigabytes of nude photographs from more than 200 women by fraudulently claiming to be a lesbian photographer.

According to the police, the method of “acquisition” used by the suspect, surnamed Chang (張), was to pose online as a lesbian photographer. The suspect allegedly told women that he was participating in a body arts evaluation and needed to compile a portfolio for the evaluation. Then, after acquiring the passwords to some women’s photo albums, he copied entire albums onto his computer’s hard drive, or a portable hard drive.

The revelation that “she” was actually a male came when a teacher doubling as a model in Hsinchu happened to spot some of her personal photos while browsing the Internet and reported it to the police.

The Hsinchu police traced the IP address to the National Taitung Girls’ Senior High School. This led the police to Chang as their primary suspect, as the high school was where he served his substitute military service — a program for males of conscription age to work in governmental affairs or agencies which require assistance.

Police said Chang, currently working as a realty agent, admitted he started acquiring the photos when he was a college sophomore in 2007. Chang was quoted by the police as denying that he circulated the photos online.

Police sorted through the photos and concluded that they were taken by the women themselves, shot by the women’s boyfriends or by professional photographers at the women’s residences, motels, or even outside in nature.

The photos depicted the victims’ curvaceous forms or, in more hardcore cases, the breasts and genitalia, the police said, surmising that the photos were taken in an effort to preserve the women’s “best” years.

“We’ve only been able to find about 10 of the victims from their Internet pseudonyms, which Chang used to categorize the photos, but only six were willing to come to the station to make statements,” the police said.

They added that the six victims have all said they intended to bring charges against Chang and ask for reparation.

However, some of the women declined to make a statement or press charges, saying: “I have a good figure, that’s why people want to see it and share the photos.”